Add Notepad++ to the context menu

This little regedit keeps coming in handy.  Thought I’d add it here so it’s easy for me to find and the other 2 of you that read this blog.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\Open with Notepad++\command]
@="\"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Notepad++\\notepad++.exe\" \"%1\""

Save that into a file with the extension .reg and double click it to add to the registry.  You’ll now see Open with Notepad++ in the context menu.

Pretty awesome, eh?  You can add whatever else you like to your context menu as well.  As always though be cautious when modifying the registry.

I’ve seen people wreck, destroy, obliterate their machine fiddling with things they shouldn’t have.  With that said, have fun doing it!

This post was inspired by: http://www.sevenforums.com/software/29942-notepad-context-menu.html

Windows Update–How to stop being annoyed #TipOfTheDay

We all have been there before, whether you are in the middle of working on your laptop/desktop or logged into a Remote Desktop session, that pesky Windows Update appears.  No matter what you do, you can’t get rid of how annoying that restart box is. 

Beyond that, if you click postpone, it’s just going to prompt you later on.  Hey Microsoft: 4 hours isn’t long enough for me!  On top of all of that, the Restart Now button is locked an loaded.  If, and I say if meaning “When”, you click on it, you are done.  Gone goes the tabs of research, the document that wasn’t saved, the sweet blog post; the list goes on and on.  Yes, there are measures built into Win7 and Vista to stop accidental reboots, however, it’s extremely inconvenient, and on XP non-existent.  At my prior job, we used Remote Desktop Services heavily and this was a constant gripe from my users.  I tried to do updates on the weekends, but being a 1 man shop, I like having a life .  Here’s my solution. STOP CLICKING POSTPONE!  That’s right, treat it like any other window you don’t have time for.  Drag that bugger off the screen and leave it there until you, YOU, yes YOU, want to restart.

Doing this you get rid of two major annoyances of mine.  First, there isn’t a nuke button popping up on your screen.  Second, it’s completely out of sight and out of mind.  Windows Update, I WILL REBOOT WHEN I FEEL LIKE IT.  How do you like them apples?

Update:  After doing some digging, I figured these settings could be controlled via Group Policy.  If you open gpedit.msc, the settings sure enough are there:

Like I said before, Home versions of Windows do not have this capability, so what to do?  Regedit!  Apply these regedits and you, yes YOU, can disable the nuclear time bomb yourself.  Make sure you know what you are doing within the registry before you start editing.  I cannot assume any responsibility and will offer no help if you nuke your PC doing so.

 

Technorati Tags: FAIL,Microsoft,PC,Win7,XP,Vista,Windows Update,Windows 7

Download pictures from HootSuite: Ow.ly

Maybe you have noticed, maybe you haven’t, but when you send pictures to this service, you cannot download them from their website.  Right click as much as you want, you’ll never get a Save Picture As option.  That’s a major flaw in my book.  I send pictures to the cloud not to lock them into a vault.  I send them because I’d like to share them!  These pictures are not yours HootSuite, they are mine and will always be mine!

What can you do about it?

Being the curious guy that I am, I noticed an embed link on the page.  Let’s look at this one for example: http://ow.ly/i/65gE.  Cracking open notepad, I pasted this link and saved the .txt file to a .htm.  Upon opening the newly created web page, I see my beautiful picture with all of it’s glorious pixels.  Well, it’s not that great of a photo, but the end result is gratifying.  Since I’m now viewing a web page with MY photo on it, that isn’t controlled by HootSuite, I’m able to right click the page and Save Picture As. Ha ha, I win HootSuite…  When you save the photo, the file type is defaulted to a .gif.  Go ahead and save it as a .gif.  When I did this earlier, I tried opening my picture, but it didn’t display my photo…  Did HootSuite one-up me again?!?  Absolutely not!  Right click that .gif file and select edit.  This will open the picture up in MSPaint.  Then simply save this photo as a .jpeg or .jpg.  Congratulations, you now own your digital media…. again!

I OWN MY PHOTOS HOOTSUITE and it’s quite ridiculous that I have to resort to these tactics just to share my digital life.  What if my friends or family wanted to download that photo?  Give up the policy of what is yours is mine and what’s mine is mine.  It’s so not attractive.

Clean up your PC this holiday season…

In the last day, I’ve had 3 PC’s dropped off to me all for the same reason: “Can you take off all of the garbage that comes with this and make it as fast as possible?”.  Laptops are horrendously crippled machines out of the box.  It all boils down to advertising.  The Bing bar does absolutely nothing for the end user other than running in the background wasting resources.  The same goes for the classic Adobe Reader auto run entry in the registry.  It’s all a bit of rubbish if you ask me.  There is absolutely no need for a netbook running Windows 7 Starter edition to have 16 .exe’s firing upon startup.  Look at it, I’m not making it up:

Most, if not all listed here is software that is a bunch of gunk!  I’m completely baffled as to why most software vendors feel the need to attach every bit of itself to the startup process.  It’s Windows 7 people!  If you absolutely need to have your .exe running in the background, fire it up as an Automatic Delayed Service.  Operative word: Delayed…  This will run after the computer freed up a few resources that are tied up during the login process.  It’s a no brainer these days to take advantage of that capability.  However, since this seems to be the status quo, I’ll continue to shake my head and collect my paycheck *fixing* what shouldn’t ever have been broken.  Here’s a few steps that you can take to optimize your brand new computer.

1. Grab Revo Uninstaller – Beginner Level
2. Grab CCleaner – Beginner level
3. Grab Autoruns – Advanced level

Depending on how in-depth you’d like to go, I’ve marked each software with a level.  Each of these can do major damage to your brand new machine, so use caution.  If you’d rather leave it to an expert, I can always be reached.  While I never use Revo Uninstaller, I’d like to show beginners some of the options available.  I go through the list in Programs and Features picking off non-essential software.  After a while, you just get an eye for it.

What do I look for?

I rip out arguably more than I should, but that’s just me.  I OPTIMIZE .  The usual targets are any power management softwares, widget bars, pre-loaded games, the stupid trial version of anti-virus… By the way, don’t pay for an anti-virus.  Yeah, I said it!  They all are garbage, but since you HAVE to use one, use Microsoft Security Essentials.  It’s free and less intrusive than the other free options out there.  Getting back to the list of garbage: Toolbars, preloaded screensavers, the Acrobat.com entry (To this day, I’ve never found out what that actually does.), DVD programs, Label printing software (Who uses a netbook to print labels?).  Everything I’ve listed here, Windows 7 can do out of the box; and a mighty fine job of it, if you ask me. 

Don’t Accept OOTB

It’s necessary for you to optimize your computer even though it’s brand new.  It’s a sad fact, but nonetheless, a fact.  If you use different techniques to make your PC more efficient, feel free to post a comment.  I love hearing about how other people are dealing with this.